Hanging by a Nerve ...

.Well, I've let my little slice of the web lie dormant for about a year, now, so it's probably time for that annual "this year I'm really going to stay current" vow and a few weeks' worth of posts before I get busy again and neglect my blog.

A lot has happened over the past year. There have been ups (a new dog and a rockin' boyfriend) and downs (I was part of the "reduction in force" at my job in November, and am still looking for a new one), but I think that's just the way it goes. What's that saying? Without the downs, you don't appreciate the ups?

I turned 40 last year. It's both a major milestone and a minor speedbump. Major in the sense of marking time, other people's perceptions and what one can let a number like "40" say about them and what they've accomplished. Minor in the sense of life continuing on just like it did when I was 39.

Spent my 40th in Las Vegas with said rockin' boyfriend. I'd never been there, and it was awesome. It's funny -I'd thrown out the "I want to go to Vegas for my 40th" at an after-work happy hour in like November. And, while he wasn't my boyfriend - or even my (ahem) "occasional date" - then, C agreed to go with me.

I loved gambling in Vegas. No. Take that back. I loved gambling at The Flamingo in Vegas. The Bellagio robbed me blind. I'd put down $100 at a 5-card table and walk away with nothing in like 5-10 minutes. Their slots were a little kinder, and I won a few dollars playing penny slots - which kept me there long enough for a few free drinks.

We made it down to Freemont Street one night, and I got to gamble at the Golden Nugget and Binion's - I loved it down there. And on our last night, we had like an 8:00 a.m. flight out the next day so just stayed up all night gambling. I made like $300 that night.

Loved Vegas. Will totally go back.

The girls have done well over the past year or so ...

Miss O is 4 now, and, well, she kind of defies description. She's still tiny and cute (she can wear a 2T), but she's grown into herself so well. She's confident, relatively even-tempered and just a ton of fun, but not in an obnoxious or overbearing way. She can keep herself entertained for hours, and is as likely to be singing a My Little Pony opera as she is to be sitting in her room with a pile of books, "reading".

Bean is 6.5 now, and just switched over to a martial arts-based after-school program. She's in accelerated math and reading at school, has developed quite the palate, and is still the most loving child in the world. She's a lot of fun and has really started to blossom with self-confidence - she's always had bluster and bravado, but not true self-confidence. And I'm so happy for her that the balance is starting to shift.

And these days they actually, more often than not, get along. (Have totally jinxed them, saying that out loud ... thankfully they are at their dad's as I type ...)

The dog we added? His name is Eli, and we adopted him from the Central Texas SPCA for Christmas. He. Is. Awesome.

It's the new year, new beginning, fresh start, tabula rasa ... all that stuff. It should be an optimistic, hopeful time.

Unless you begin your year with my kids, that is.

I so badly want to be a great mom. I want to be calm, compassionate. I want to be able to love and accept these kids at face value, not holler, not threaten. I truly do see being a mom as my most important job. I want my kids to see me with trust, love and that idealistic sparkly-eyed wonder that children see their fictional parents with. Fictional, because I just know that truly, every parent ends up being "real" and not "fantasy" after awhile.

But every single day, those aspirations are dashed before the sun even rises. Bean badgers her little sister nonstop. She has to one-up or correct her on everything, she has to dominate play, she has to speak in an ugly, aggressive way and just destroy any semblance of peace. Miss O is now just a hyper-reactive kid, so any injustice from Bean means she'll start her whining and crying and then it's like talking a jumper off the ledge. Unless your words are chosen perfectly (and this varies every. single. time.) you make a volatile situation worse.

Then there's the absolute inability to do what they're told, when they're told. It can't ever be a "please put that back" // "okay" exchange. It's always drama, negotiation and freak outs. I pick my battles, but even with a somewhat laissez-faire approach to my expectations, everything's a battle. Everything. There is not a single exchange with my kids that isn't a battle.

I don't know how I'm supposed to be a good mom in the face of all this. There are small lulls, where they can play nicely together for 10-15 minutes. And I can usually get some peace if I park them in front of the TV, but the majority of each day is just hard. Really, really hard. And it breaks my heart not to enjoy my time with them more than I do. .

It's been a joy to watch you grow up; to see your personality develop and to learn about who you are. You're just such a cool little person, and I love everything about you. Happy Birthday, sweetheart.

.The Thanksgiving break was, I think, a little hard on the Big Girl. Not that she minded the extra home time. It was the change in routine that threw her; a few days at 'daycare' (which she declared was "too little for me; the kids in pre-K just don't *know* anything"), and was a complete break for the predictable routine she has at Kindy. Then a lot of special togetherness days at home. With me. At home. For several days. Just me, Bean and Her Royal Tininess. And the glad tidings and thankfulness that go along with that togetherness. (I mentioned that it was a lot of days, right?)

So it really shouldn't have been a huge shock when she started to get a little ornery. But it was. And I reacted as well as those who know me would expect, after several days at home, with my kids. I get a little ... ahh ... twitchy when I feel trapped.

There was this time, many moons ago, when I still lived at home with my folks in Sarasota. As Florida thunderstorms are wont to do, there would sometimes be epic rainfall that would flood us into our neighborhood. Regardless of whether I *planned* to go out that day/night, knowing I couldn't leave drove me batty. I probably would have built a damn raft, knowing all the while the water would be down in a day or two.

I'm like that guy who cut of his own arm after being trapped under a boulder for five days, except, you know, less patient and way less ballsy. A few days of not being able to get 5 minutes alone makes me contemplate things like how nice it would be to have appendicitis and be hospitalized. Sure someone would come in every 2 hours to take my vitals, but if I said "Can you bring me the clicker?" there wouldn't be a 10 minute discussion about why I needed it, who invented the clicker, who invented the TV and what the phrase 'hand to god, I could drown myself in a bucket' means and whether it's a figure of speech or a myth.

But all that together time did yield a lot of great moments, and a lot of fun. We got in some time at the newly rebuilt neighborhood park, dinner with my folks and decorating the house. The girls are just awesome little people, each totally their own person and totally comfortable in who they are. I'm so proud of who they are, and how much love they have in their hearts.

Park time, Thanksgiving morning. You'll likely notice Bean's boots - she hasn't worn anything else since I got them for her. Personally, I think they take her style to a whole new level.

Our bling-tastic Christmas decor - magenta, silver and purple ornaments, and hot pink lights. They wanted pink and purple lights, but I talked them down to pink and white to minimize the bordello theme they were driving toward. Just call it the Best Little Christmas House in Texas.

And the extra fabulousness of our Shrine-to-Santa. Yes, those are pink trees. And no, I don't remember what Her Royal Tininess was all about back there ... but the picture is totally reflective of life with them: one is full-on, all the time, the other is comic relief.

.For Miss O's 2nd birthday party, I made a Texas-style chili that everyone (very kindly) raved about. When I was invited to a soup swap recently, I decided to replicate my efforts, and actually (a first for me) keep track of what and how much I used to create a recipe. I tend to just be a wing-it type of cook; I'm not really a details kind of person when it comes to cooking (which is likely why I suck at baking), but more of an "start with stuff that sounds good, add more or less of other things to taste, cook it 'til it's done" kind of cook.

I cut the bigger hunks of stew meat into smaller bits, and crumbled the chili meat before browning so nothing stuck together in clumps. You can probably skip browning, but I think it adds flavor. While I was browning the meat (in several batches), I added a generous sprinkle of garlic salt to cut the browning meat aroma. I love red meat, but hate the smell of it browning.

Dice the onion and sautee it in the last round of beef drippings (for all the others, I soaked up the fatty runoff with paper towels) until softened with some browned bits.

Start dumping everything in the slow cooker. For this recipe, I used a 6-quart cooker. I started with the meat, then onion, mole, tomatoes and salsa.

The mole is a pain in the tush to work with, but the flavors it adds are *so* worth it. If you’ve never used mole, opening the jar is difficult, and there’s an inch or so layer of oil on top. Oh, and the opening instructions are in Spanish, so enjoy that. I'm pretty sure the instructions say "locate the three dots, then pry the lid off at the dots". Either that or "get a beer, find a cute guy to open this, take it back after he's figured it out." Potato, potahto.

Below the inch of oil is a solid brick of mole. You need to puree the mole with water or broth or something before you add it to the pot – it won’t melt down. (Yes, that's experience talking.)

Cook for at least 6 hours – I did about 18 hours. Give it a good stir as often as you like. My slow cooker has a 10-hour setting, and that’s what I used, but it still boiled the chili and could possibly burn the bottom layer if you aren’t stirring or using a slow cooker liner.

The result is a sweet, rich, somewhat spicy, earthy, meaty chili that is to. die. for. Unless you're a vegetarian. Texas chili is pretty universally accepted as being bean-free. When I went through my couple years of vegetarianism, I really grew to like chili made with fake meat crumbles and dried, rehydrated, beans. Using the dried beans meant they retained just a bit more firmness and held up better for a 6-10 hour slow cooking. But now that I've done Texas chili, I don't know if I can ever go back to fake meat and beans. .

About Me

Spectacular single mom of two. My partners in crime are Bean, my 6.5-year-old whirling dervish, and Miss O, the tiny and cute 4-year-old dynamo. Bean is alternately the sweetest and the most difficult child on earth, and there's never a dull moment when she's around. Miss O has her own way of doing things, unless she's copying her big sister. Sweet and endearing and the master of the traveling roadshow tantrum. Really. Master. As for the me, I'm cute, I'm opinionated and I talk about pretty much anything that's on my mind. What ya see is what ya get here. I'm not a drama queen, not a punch-puller and certainly not a sugar-coater.